Nature as Teacher (3) Setting Stone

The unusual alignment of the upright stone really appealed to me. This stone added something to the space that I found very compelling. Though the stone is much smaller it adds a strange kind of balance to the space. and also acts on it's own. I guess I am a sucker for upright stones like this-they send a great message or add character to their space.

When it came time to build this set of vertical falls I really wanted to try and add some uprights to the composition. Not only do they hold the left side of the "build" together, the two stones bring "something powerful" to this designed and built waterfeature.

It's been written in a lot of literature about stone pointing-directional and all types of symbolism with the uprights, history abounds with this discussion. well I just really like the look and the way the stone seems to speak for itself-very powerful. Plus I feel good about using the uprights because I have seen the same pattern in the natural World.

In most cases the majority of the stone should be composed with the grain running in the same pattern-to mimic what occurs naturally. Something a lot of professionals seem to forget, not think about, or just plain dis-respect the occurrences in the natural World.

If you really get out and study stone as it occurs you will see the "Contrarian" stones in their natural settings and understand where this type of stone work happens. Big rushing violent water, long drops, cliff bottoms, geological catastrophe, etc.

So break the rules of stone setting-only after you have learned the rules-and most importantly studied the occurrences in the natural World.